The Axe (41 page)

“Ah—but, sooth to say, I have not my horse with me now. But maybe you can get me the loan of one?” He laughed as if he had made a good joke.

“I go through the forest, on skis,” said Olav curtly.

“Ah. Such conveyance I can well find. I have seen a pair out in
the shed—” he darted out and came back with them. The ski was split for a good part of its length and the hide of the
aander
was almost worn away.

Teit fastened on his belt and sword and threw his cloak about him. “Ay, now I am ready when you will!”

“Food you must take, I ween?”

“Nay, such heavy gear I thought to spare myself—for a good reason.”

Olav felt very ill at ease. Was he to share his food with a man whom perhaps he would afterwards—break peace with? And something prompted him to offer the lad the whole; Teit must have gone very short of food lately.—But in any case that would have to wait till they came up into the hills.

“Think it well over, though, Icelander,” he said, almost threateningly. “Might it not be foolhardy for you to join company with me through the forest, think you?” He felt he was giving his conscience a little more than its due in saying this—it might sound like a sort of challenge. What would happen was uncertain, but in any event—

But Teit only smiled coldly and slapped his sword. “Methinks I am better armed than you—I believe I will venture it, Olav. And for that matter—a great man like you does not cast his hawk at every fly.”

As they were going out, Olav looked back at the hearth; the fire was now burning briskly.

“But—will you not put it out?”

“Nay, I care not. ’Twill be no great harm anyhow if this hut be burned up.”

As soon as they stepped outside, Olav noticed that the mist in the air had now grown so dense that he could look at the sun-there was a grey veil before it.

The surface was good when they reached the high ground. Olav kept to the northern slopes of the ridge that lies between Ridabu and Fauskar. As far as he remembered, he ought to go due
north and then slightly to the north-east; then in the course of the afternoon he would come into a tract that contained not a few sæters belonging to farms in the Glaama Dale, and they would be sure of finding shelter for the night. The evenings were already long.

The snow lay six or eight feet deep on these slopes, and after the thaw of the last weeks’ mild weather and the sudden frost, it gave excellent going. But ever and anon Olav had to wait for Teit, who lay floundering, sunk in masses of snow. He was just
as
likely to fall at the top of a slope as at the bottom.

“I think we shall have to change skis,” said Olav after a while. The hide of Teit’s
aander
was so ragged that Olav simply ripped it off.

The change did not help Teit much; it was marvellous how many tumbles the boy got. He lost his ski and went through the frozen crust up to his waist, laughing at his own clumsiness as he scrambled out.

“You are not much used to running on skis, Teit?” asked Olav; he had been far down a bush-grown scree after the other’s ski.

“Not much.” Teit’s face was red as fire from his struggles and he had scratched both face and hands on the frozen snow, but he laughed heartily. “At home in Iceland I never set foot on a ski. And here in Norway I have not tried the art more than two or three times before today.”

“ ’Twill be hard work for you to cover the long road to Miklebö, then,” said Olav.

“Oh, I shall come through well enough—have no fear of that.”

“God knows if he even sees how it plagues me to run back and forth in my own tracks like a dog to pull up him and his skis,” thought Olav. Aloud he suggested that they might rest awhile and take a bite of food. Teit was quite willing, and Olav broke off branches and laid them on the snow.

He looked the other way while the lad was eating. “Ay, he suffers no want who is victualled by convent folk!”

The sky was now grey all over. From where they sat, high on the shaded slope, they saw nothing but forest, ridge behind ridge, blue-black beneath the heavy sky; in the valley that lay just below them the forest looked black as coal around a little white patch—a lake or a marsh.

But round about the birds began to pipe and chirp in tones of spring—a little uncertain and hesitating in the face of the weather that was coming. Now and again a sough went through the forest, advancing from ridge to ridge. The land to the northward was wrapped in a snow-squall, which hid the dark-grey cliff and the wooded slope below it—it was coming this way.

“Nay, Teit—we must go on.”

Olav helped the Icelander to bind his skis securely. And then this sword—for a man who fell at every turn. He could not help saying it—sword and skis do not go together.

“ ’Tis the only weapon I have.” He drew it and handed it to Olav, with some pride. It was a good weapon—a plain hilt and a fine blade. “That is my whole patrimony—all my father left me. And I will never part with it!”

“Is your father dead?”

“Ay—three years ago. ’Twas then it came into my head to try my luck in Norway. Well—I made for Fljotshverv first, to Mother. She ran off from Father and me when I was seven winters old and I had not seen her for ten years—she had found one she wished to marry, and then her conscience smote her for having been a priest’s paramour so long. But she would fainer see my heel than my toe—ay, there had been lean years in our part of the country, and the children swarmed on their farm; I could never find out how many were mother’s and which belonged to the other women—”

“Nay, Teit—” Olav leaned forward on his skis and set out again.

Tacking this way and that, he plunged down; the ground was broken here—he had to crouch under the trees. The sun had beaten down on the snow and left the ski-track standing out like a ridge. But yon fellow must get on as best he could.

Down by the tarn he stopped, waiting and listening. A gust of wind swept the ridge, there was a creaking and grating and soughing through the forest. Ah, at last, there came the sound of skis on the frozen slope.

Teit accomplished the last lap in fine style and came down to the tarn. He was white all over from his falls, but he grinned with all his gleaming teeth and his grazed and ruddy cheeks.

“Soon I shall be as good a ski-runner as a Norseman!” He showed what he had done with his awkward cloak—by degrees it
had become so ragged that he had thought it as well to thrust his arms through two of the holes and fasten his belt outside. Thus he was rid of
that
hindrance.

“Are you very tired?” asked Olav.

“Oh no.” He put his hand to the back of his neck and rocked his head a little: just there in the bend of the neck he was stiff and sore—it felt as if the devil himself had caught him there.

Olav himself felt a slight stiffness in the same place—it was the first time he had been on skis this year. So he could imagine what the other felt. And all at once there came into his mind—his rowing to Hamar with Ingunn on the lake; he was only a boy at the time, and he had toiled and pulled at the oars, but his neck ached worse and worse and he clenched his teeth, spurted, and would not give in and show that he was tired; he felt perfectly hopeless—“Shall we never get there?”

He looked at Teit—and clenched his teeth. He must stifle this feeling that tried to get the better of him. He would think of her—how
she
was suffering now; of the hatred and loathing that had filled him when he heard of her ruin; of all the hopes that had been destroyed. “And we shall live in the shadow of this sorrow and shame all our days.” But here was this malapert youth, who was the cause of their misfortunes—and had no idea of it all. They went on side by side across the flat, and Teit chattered incessantly, puffing and blowing and groaning—asked Olav questions about the animal tracks they saw—old trails that glistened on the frozen crust, fresh ones of elk that had gone through—boasted of his newly acquired skill as a ski-runner. He confided in him, almost as a boy confides to his father.—And more than anything else Olav felt a kind of pity for this fatuous simplicity. No! This was so utterly preposterous—

The first hard grains of snow began to drizzle down as they entered the forest on the other side of the tarn. And the daylight was already on the wane. They had not gone far up the slope when they found themselves in a flurry of snow. Olav pushed on, stopped and waited for the other, who was hanging back—pushed on again. Now he was restlessly longing to make an end of this journey, to come under a roof—and at the same time he shrank from thinking of what then. From the height where they had rested, he had seen that beyond the ridge they were now on was a higher one, and at the top of it were some white patches on which there seemed to be
houses. They might be crofters’ homes, they might meet folk tonight—or they might be sæters, which was more likely. It must fall out as it was fated.

Higher up there was a strong breeze against them. For a time the snow had fallen thickly in great soft flakes, but now the wind lashed their faces with hard, dry grains; the whistling sound of the snow seemed to fill the whole forest with a sharp note that penetrated the droning and howling of the wind in the fir-tops. And the weather was felt the more since the dusk was now growing rapidly denser.

The ski-tracks had vanished long ago, a good deal of fresh snow had fallen already, and where it had been blown into drifts, their skis sank in deep.

Again he had to stop and wait for Teit. The Icelander drew up beside him, groaning as if his chest would burst; breathless, but as cheerful as ever, he said: “Bide awhile, friend—let me go ahead and break the trail.”

Olav felt his will sink impotently—before this feeling that arose within him, which he must grapple with and trample underfoot ere he could do aught to this boy. He flung himself forward and ran on with all his strength. Now and again he had to halt and listen whether the other was after him, but he never waited till Teit had quite overtaken him.

It was almost dark when they reached the clearing. It looked like a little cluster of sæters. Through the snow and the darkness he had a glimpse of scattered black objects—some might be large rocks, but some were huts.

Olav threw down the wallet as soon as they were inside the dark hole, took out his tinder-pouch, and set about striking fire. He knelt over the hearth, breathing upon the little flames that struggled to catch the half-damp twigs—heard Teit’s cries of satisfaction as he looked about him in the little cabin. There was hay on the pallet, a skin coverlet, and some sacks for pillows—and the boy strode into the black hole beyond, a sort of shed of stones and turf. There were bannocks, Teit announced, and a tub of whey and water; he came into the opening with a baler in his hand and offered Olav some of the half-frozen drink.

“To be sure, Teit, we are in a Christian land; folk do not go from their sæters without leaving behind the wherewithal to keep
body and soul together, should any need it when faring through the forest.”

Teit stretched himself on the pallet while they took their meal, lying with his knees drawn up and his head low on account of the smoke; they could not make a draught, for the little room was so narrow that the flames might catch the bedstead or the pile of fuel on the floor. Olav sat on the bench opposite, in spite of the smoke, which tore at his chest and made his eyes smart. The man sat with his arms crossed, staring under drooping eyelids into the fire and listening to the boy’s chatter, silent as a stone. ’Twas all folly; neither the weather nor the road was anything to talk about—had he not been burdened with this companion, who was like a new-born calf on skis, he would have run hither in half the time. But the fool talked as though they had been comrades in the mightiest adventures and dangers.

“Are you tired?” asked Teit, suddenly aware that the other had not replied a word to his flood of talk. He made room on the pallet—“Or maybe you will lie inside?”

Never, thought Olav. Share a couch with this guest for a night—no. There was reason in all things.

“Nay, I am not tired.”

He tried to collect his thoughts. For they seemed to be slipping away from him all the time—Ingunn and he were
married;
he must keep that clearly before him; and therefore Teit
must
be put out of the way; he had ruined her from pure frivolity, but this nonsense the boy talked about repairing her misfortune—the young goat could do nothing there; he must do it himself, the little that could be done. Hide the shame. Believe—let folk believe what they pleased, so long as they saw where he stood and where her kinsmen must stand with him—he acknowledged the child for his and intended to defend his word against any who dared to utter doubts aloud.

“When did you hear these rumours?” he asked abruptly. “That she is—in trouble? This must have got abroad quite lately?”

Teit said ay, ’twas not so long since he had heard it. Some people he knew in the town had a daughter who was married to one of the crofters under Berg. And both they and their daughter had seen her walking hither and thither on the slopes below the manor in the evenings—but now of course it was light till late at night.—Teit dwelt upon their gossip.

Olav sat listening with lowered brows. The blood began to surge in his ears. But this was better. Let the boy keep on; now he would soon get over this unmanly—kindliness, which had been in a fair way to corrupt him.

“And what of you?” asked Olav; his mouth was twisted into a sort of smile. “Could you forbear to let them know that this was your doing?”

“I dare say I said some such thing.”

“Have you spoken of it to others?”

If it could be made to seem like crofters’ tattle and naught else, that would be bearable. Carry one’s head high among one’s equals, look them straight and hard in the face, and pretend to have no inkling of what was murmured behind one’s back—malicious gossip that the maids had carried to their mistresses—

Teit said, with some embarrassment: “I had been so furious with her that it made me glad when first I heard she was so heavy on her feet.—The devil knows she was light and quick enough last summer—like a cat that strokes herself against one’s leg and slips away when one tries to take her up. Then at last, when I had got her in my clutches—”